Chain length, and where each one sits

The fastest way to a length that works is a chain you already wear. Lay it flat, measure it end to end including the clasp, and buy that number. Everything below is for people who do not have one.

The second fastest way is a piece of string. Drape it where you want the pendant to fall, mark it at the back of the neck, and measure the string. Add nothing for the clasp: the number you get is the number on the page.

On an adult man with a 15 to 16 inch collar, an 18 inch chain sits high on the throat and reads as a choker under a shirt. Twenty inches lands on the collarbone, which is where most cross pendants are meant to sit. Twenty-two to twenty-four inches drops onto the sternum, clears an open collar, and is the usual choice when the pendant is heavy enough to be seen from across a room.

On a smaller frame every one of those numbers moves down by roughly an inch of visual effect. That is not a rule, it is arithmetic: the same chain on a narrower neck has further to fall before it meets the chest.

Thirty inches and above is a different decision. At that length the chain stops being neckwear and becomes a line down the shirt, and the weave matters more than the pendant.

Width decides how much of the chain you notice. Under 3 mm a chain is a line. At 4 to 6 mm it is jewellery in its own right. Above 8 mm it is the piece, and a pendant on it competes rather than sits.

Weight follows width faster than people expect, because a chain is a solid cross-section: doubling the width roughly quadruples the metal. A 6 mm Cuban link is not twice a 3 mm one, it is closer to four times, and you feel that at the back of the neck by the end of a day.

We cannot tell you how a chain will sit on your neck, because collar size, shoulder width and where you like a pendant to fall are yours. Nothing on this page is a substitute for a piece of string and two minutes in front of a mirror.

We also do not publish neck measurements for the pieces themselves, because a chain has one length and it is printed on its page. Where a maker gives a range instead of a number, the piece comes in a choice of lengths, and the range is printed exactly as they wrote it.